Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1139

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

"Worlds Apart" - Introducing Dutch newspaper sub-editing practices at a Flemish broadsheet

Authors: Vandendaele, Astrid; Jacobs, Geert
Submitted by: Vandendaele, Astrid (University of Ghent, Belgium)

De Morgen is a Flemish broadsheet that presents itself as a “progressive, independent quality newspaper”. From 1998 onwards, it has been engaged in a close working relationship with Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant. This is reflected, among other things, in long-standing agreements with correspondents and columnists. Recently, the collaboration has spread to the last step of the editorial process, the so-called sub-editing, which is generally defined as the re-writing of news stories and features by checking them for factual errors or other legal dangers and making them fit the allocated space in a newspaper (Franklin et al 2005).

In line with recent claims that media research should move on from solely charting the professional cultures of privileged full-time reporters (Wahl-Jorgenson 2009), we investigate how the Flemish-Dutch collaboration affects sub-editing at De Morgen. In this paper we want to explore if and how this deepening relationship is reflected in the daily news production process and/or the final news product.

Tying in with a shift in media discourse studies towards analysing news production practices and their relation to text, talk and social meaning (Cotter 2010; NT&T 2011), we propose a linguistic ethnographic approach to sub-editing. (Blommaert & Dong 2010) We draw on participant observation recently conducted at the newsdesks of both De Morgen and de Volkskrant. Our data include fieldnotes and audio-recordings of storyboard meetings, semi-structured interviews with sub-editors and journalists and tutorials led by de Volkskrant chief ‘subbers’ at De Morgen. In addition, we present a single case-study of how sub-editing influences the complex entextualizations in an individual news story, including its headline, lead and caption.

Based on our data, we show how tensions at the heart of the collaboration between De Morgen and de Volkskrant trickle down into the sub-editing process. While exploring the sub-editor’s daily practices, we observed how conflicts arose during inter-personal communication in the newsroom, ranging from clashes with fellow sub-editors, graphic designers, chief (sub-) editors, journalists and the reader community. Many of those conflicts are linked to the different definitions of ‘sub-editor’, which - though “worlds apart” - are characteristic of both newspapers’ cultures.

By demonstrating how sub-editing collaboration at the two newspapers goes beyond mere issues of document design, we are led towards a more complete definition of the sub-editor as a gatekeeper or – in the language of Gieber (1964) - a genuine ‘newspaperman’, and hence toward a better understanding of newsmaking practice.

References:

Blommaert J. & Dong J. (2010). Ethnographic fieldwork: A beginner’s guide. Bristol, Multilingual Matters.

Cotter, C. (2010). News talk: investigating the language of journalism. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Franklin, B., Hamer, M., Hanna, M., Kinsey, M. & Richardson, J. (2005). Key concepts in journalism studies. London, Sage Publications.

Gieber, W. (1964). “News Is What Newspapermen Make It”, in L. Dexter& D. White (Eds.), People society and mass communication (pp. 173-191). London, Collier – MacMillan.

NT&T (2011). Towards a linguistics of news production. Journal of Pragmatics. 43. (pp. 1843–1852). Amsterdam, Elsevier.

Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2009). “On the newsroom-centricity of journalism ethnography”. In L. Bird (Ed.), Journalism and Anthropology (pp. 21-35). Bloomington, Indiana University Press.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

"Worlds Apart" - Introducing Dutch newspaper sub-editing practices at a Flemish broadsheet